


A Guide: How To Pick Up Fair Maidens

by AngstyLlamaCrossings



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Hinted Gehrman/Maria, Hunter's Dream, Pre-Canon, Spoilers, Teacher-Student Relationship, The Old Hunter's DLC, Tragedy, True Ending, cainhurst castle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:21:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23770741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngstyLlamaCrossings/pseuds/AngstyLlamaCrossings
Summary: Gehrman recounts a memory of Lady Maria, before everything went to shit.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	A Guide: How To Pick Up Fair Maidens

**Author's Note:**

> the quotes are from the game so you know spoilers and stuff :DDD

_  
“Gehrman!”_

  
He’s startled awake, propped up in a field of fluorescent flowers. They stretch across the castle grounds for as far as the eye could see, reflecting the blinding rays of the warm summer sun beating down on his back.

“My goodness me,” the sweet supple voice tuts with practiced sarcasm.

“Is this where you’ve been all day while the rest of us were working our fingers to the bone?" she flashes a toothy grin, tucking a lock of hair behind one ear, so pale than it seemed to sparkle in the light.

"Very naughty of you, I'd say."

He yawns in response, rolling over in complete disregard. His back is turned but he can picture her rocketing anger like the back of his hand, pouty lips jutting out to the fingers clenched tight around her waist.

“You see how he is Ludwig?” She turns to the nervous little boy standing beside her with an accusatory finger, “the royal tutor lazing about in broad daylight, of all the nerve!”

The little boy remains silent, fiddling the hem of his church garb as if blissfully ignorant of the drama that was unfolding before him. But there’s a shy smile on his face, as if he was witnessing a well rehearsed play, one that he had seen many times before.

“Now, now children.”

A third figure enters into the fold, much bigger and older than the rest, “we mustn’t disturb an old man in his sleep you know, it’s very rude.”

“Brother Laurence!” the little boy beams, throwing his arms wide open in invitation. They barely reach up to the man's thick thigh but the vicar picks him up with little effort, causing uncontrollable giggles to bubble out as he did so.

Slighted, the hunters scoffs with a raised brow, a maroon scarf falling to his waist as he stood.

“Who're you calling an old man huh?” there's a steady smirk on his shaven face, welcoming any who dared challenge him.

According to the hunter’s code, Laurence was his senior in name and rank but the man was getting soft, careless in his old age. One slice of a scythe and all this would be over in the blink of an eye.

“You.”

Lady Maria prods a finger into his chest, stating the obvious in a mechanical voice, “He means _you_.”

The giggles erupt, accompanied by large guffaws.

Lacking a better comeback, the hunter grunts in momentary defeat. If there was anything sharper than Lady Maria's fighting instincts, it would have to be her wit and it was the only thing that the hunter could not cut down, no matter how badly he wanted to.

He looks over to Laurence for solidarity but his only friend had deserted him, strolling down the castle gardens with Little Ludwig seated snugly on his broad shoulders. They hummed nursery rhymes all the way back, a child's lilt voice blended with a gravelly baritone.

“C’mon,"

The noblewoman pinches his arm, tucking him to her side in a merciful show of amity. “It’s time for tea, the others are already in the drawing room and we mustn't keep them for too long.”

She tugs him up even as he drags his feet with every step.

The thought of socializing did not appeal to the young hunter at all. Queen Annalise especially, the old crow had a predatory look in her eyes that he didn’t trust, and the same could be said for the elders of the Healing Church. It was true what they said, that the number of infected had been quarantined, but the masses were still in danger of another outbreak and there was no telling how bad it was going to be the second time around.

As the First Hunter, he had a duty to the people, to train as many as he could before things got out of control. It was a duty he planned to carry out, even if it led him to an early grave.

Either way, this was no time for afternoon teas or lavish balls. He should not be here at all, lulled by the scent of fluorescent flowers and the endless summer sun.

“C’mon!” She repeats, sounding cross before softening with a sly smile.

“They’ve got those cakes from Byrgenwerth that you like,” she teases, sidling close so that they were almost touching, “you like them, don’t you? I know you do."

"Your eyes are always following them from across the room.”

All at once, he thinks he’s been caught red-handed and he freezes, going rigid in her arms. Then he realises she means the dessert and forces himself to relax, ripping out of her hold and darting ahead at breakneck speed.

He catches up to Laurence and Ludwig in three strides, humming alongside them as the castle doors came into view.

“Hey, wait for me!”

It’s his turn to laugh, making a face as she dashed across the lawn, ponytail whipping fiercely in the wind. She’s got her dress hiked all the way up, something she’d gotten punished for many times. The little hair ornament he’d given her for her birthday swishes from side to side, making a delicious clinking noise whenever she moved.

Laurence tosses him a pitiful glance but otherwise says nothing, slipping through the castle doors with as much finesse as an ogre, Ludwig bouncing happily in front of him.

He's tempted to lock the door before the little squirt can get in but common sense and basic decency stops him. After all, she was a member of the royal court and still his student, albeit a very badly behaved one.

True to form, she enters the double doors without so much as a thank-you, throwing in a stink eye for good measure. As she passes, one of her boots accidentally-on-purpose stomps down on his own, causing him to yelp loudly.

“Why you little—“

The sound of laughter echoes through the halls and he gives chase, ignoring the passing judgments of ladies’ maids and butlers-in-waiting. She taunts him with funny faces and rude gestures, with memories of sweet dreams and terrible nightmares.

The halls squeezed and stretched, elaborates mazes of which he could never escape from and yet in every single one of them, he chases her. Running after illusions till his legs give way and there was nothing left but a decrepit old man stuck in a wheelchair for all of eternity.  
  
 _  
“Gehrman.”_

  
He’s startled awake, propped up in a field of fluorescent flowers. The sun is eclipsed in perpetual daybreak, replaced by the swelling breast of the moon.

It's quiet in the garden of his dreams, as it always is, and he breathes in the complete stillness, fingers clenched tight around a maroon scarf.

“Gehrman,”

The doll repeats, placing a porcelain hand over his in a silent plea for his attention.

“It is time to wake up now Gehrman, the dream is almost over.”

He listens but does not hear, squinting up to see her face, empty and devoid of all emotion.

The still wind picks up and the chilled air stirs his lungs into a hacking cough.

She isn't the same. She never was, and she never will be. Still her face taunts him with sweet desire and cruel passion, a nightmare locked up in a bell tower of which there was no escape.

Here, he would always remain, a slave to his senses as the past gnarled and twisted like the plague.

In frustration, he knocks her pale body to the floor, watching with fascinating horror as she rolled over with practiced ease, the little hair ornament on her head making delicious clinking noises as she went.

He picks her up immediately, apologizing as he did so.

“I’m so sorry, please forgive me.”

She smiles though it does not quite reach her eyes, dusting herself off before standing again. "It is alright Gehrman," porcelain hands reach out for his own and he takes them gingerly, barely aware of the hollowness in her bones. Her eyelids blink open and shut in timed intervals and he marvels at the monster he'd created.

"That is why you have made me, no?”

He turns away but does not respond. Her fate was cruel enough and he did not have the heart to tell her that only sentient beings have the intellectual capabilities to question their own existence, though it would mean little in a world where existence was soon coming to an end.

“The hunter is waiting,” she urges, “we must not keep him for too long.” She rests her arm on his, smiling sweetly as she did so.

Her blank eyes knew no emotion but they cried all the same, unshed tears falling on the dusty floorboards as flames licked at her shoes and engulfed the house in silent fury.

One by one, his possessions flickered in and out of sight, burning away the memories he’d tried so hard to forget, and even harder to remember.

Only the doll stood in the wreckage, unmarked by soot and ash, sidling so close that they were almost touching in this dreamscape built for two. The Ancient One had woken once again and the guardian of the Eldritch Truth would soon sleep forever, though his truly beloved will know no peace, her animated corpse dancing to the hands of a clock where time had stood still, watching and waiting for sleeping dogs to lie once more.

Perhaps one day, she shall be free from this nightmare and he, from this dream, but for now…

She holds the next gatekeeper in her palm, loving with mechanical gentleness. He closes his eyes, fading with the fluorescent petals, the moon crying out in ecstasy as the heat of the warm summer sun seared onto his skin. 

_“Farewell good hunter.”_

Illusions, deception and trickery, oh the woes of mortal men! He had fulfilled his duty but to what end? At what cost? How lovely the clock tower stands, the distant chimes of abandoned children gathered at his feet.

_"Dawn will soon break... This night, and this dream, will end."_

  
Oh how lovely is Maria, his Maria! Oh Maria! _  
_

_  
"And so, the hunt begins again."  
  
_

* * *

_END_


End file.
